1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surgical apparatus for transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM).
2. Discussion of Related Art
In general, conventional open surgery for patient treatments causes delay of post-surgical recovery for the patients due to a large incision area and thus a heavy loss of blood, and large scars remaining after the surgery have a negative impact on the patients' lives after the surgery. In order to overcome the above disadvantages of the conventional open surgery, in recent times, novel surgical techniques such as minimally invasive surgery (MIS), natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES), etc., have been developed.
MIS is a surgical technique of incising and operating on a minimal area of a patient's body using a thin and long surgical instrument specifically configured to minimize an incision area for surgery, and NOTES is a surgical technique of inserting a surgical instrument through a natural orifice (for example, the esophagus, the anus, the vagina, etc.) of a human body and conveying the surgical instrument to the operation area in the body to operate on the area without incising the patient's body in order to move the surgical instrument to the operation area in the body. Since MIS and NOTES require only a small incision area for operation and a loss of blood is remarkably less than that of the open surgery, a post-surgical recovery time for the patient is shortened and scarring is minimal. Therefore, in recent times, the number of MIS and NOTES operations has remarkably increased.
As an example of the NOTES, a surgical apparatus for transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM) is used. This apparatus is inserted into the anus of a patient so that a thin and long surgical instrument and an endoscopic instrument are conveyed to an affected area of the patient through an inner space thereof to perform a surgical operation.
The conventional surgical apparatus for TEM is configured to allow a surgeon to easily perform an operation by changing a patient's posture according to the position of the affected area. After the initial positioning, the apparatus is connected to a fixing frame to prevent further movement of the apparatus. However, when lateral rotation of the surgical apparatus for TEM is needed during the operation, there are many inconveniences such as changes of the patient's posture or separation of the apparatus from the fixing frame, re-positioning of the fixing frame, and rotation and fixation of the apparatus to the fixing frame.
In addition, when the conventional surgical apparatus for TEM is entirely rotated, since an endoscope connected to the apparatus is also rotated therewith, an endoscope screen is unintentionally rotated to cause inconvenience of re-adjustment of the posture of the endoscope.
Further, since the conventional surgical apparatus for TEM is disposed in a barrel together with the endoscope and various surgical instruments, an outer diameter of the barrel is enlarged to increase probability of injury to the patient's anus, and interference between the endoscope and the surgical instruments occurs, making it difficult to freely move the surgical instruments.